Nation's top Foreign Service recruiter talks jobs in Savannah

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Foreign Service human resources director, speaks to guests at Savannah State University about work as a Foreign Service officer. Marcus E. Howard/Savannah Morning News

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Foreign Service human resources director, speaks to guests at Savannah State University about work as a Foreign Service officer. Marcus E. Howard/Savannah Morning News

In spite of September’s deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi that claimed the lives of an ambassador and three others, the U.S. Foreign Service has more applicants than ever.

In 2012, about 22,000 people took the Foreign Service exam as the first step in applying to join the nation’s diplomatic corps. However, the competitive application process yielded just 425 new foreign service officers.

Traveling in Savannah on Thursday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the state department’s most senior recruitment official, acknowledged the foreign service — which increased by 21 percent under former Secretary Hillary Clinton — is far from hurting in terms of applicants.

What’s missing, she said, is a more diverse applicant pool.

Men from elite East Coast universities have traditionally dominated the foreign service, state department officials say.

That’s left ethnic minorities and women underrepresented in America’s embassies and consulates around the world and conflicts with the country’s inclusive value system, says Thomas-Greenfield.

Recent data shows blacks make up roughly 5 percent while Hispanics and Asians are about 4 percent of the 14,000 foreign services officers. Women, who until 1972 were banished upon marriage, comprise about 40 percent.

As result, Thomas-Greenfield, a 31-year department employee who served as ambassador to Liberia, has been making appeals to those groups, as well as people from diverse geographic and cultural backgrounds, to consider diplomacy as a career. She also traveled to Athens and Atlanta.

“We see our military always on the front lines of war, but normally, before the military comes in, there are diplomats who are there working to try to keep our country on the straight and narrow and bring about peace,” she said in an interview at the Courtyard Savannah Midtown hotel.

Thomas-Greenfield later spoke to a packed ballroom filled with students and others at Savannah State University about the challenges and opportunities that face Foreign Service officers overseas.

Terrorism, nuclear proliferation and human rights are top concerns, she said. The state department cannot wait until a crisis occurs to respond, which she said was part of the problem in Iraq, the location of America’s largest embassy with more than 3,000 employees.

“Ambassador Chris Stevens’ death, along with three of his colleagues, was a terribly sad moment for all of us in the state department,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “It is not something that we look forward to doing — burying our colleague.”

Nonetheless, foreign service officers must be on the front lines to carry out diplomacy, Thomas-Greenfield said.

It’s a way of life, which also requires them to move their families every few years.

To support its employees, she said the department has worked to improve their lives and make service attractive by offering telework and flextime options.

Overall, communication skills, especially writing, are key to becoming a successful diplomat, and it’s what the department is looking for in applicants, Thomas-Greenfield said.

Recently, the department introduced a mobile app with resources, including study material, to assist those interested in foreign service careers.

Last week, there were 1,000 downloads, which have since increased to 6,000, said Terry Davidson, a recruitment outreach branch chief.

And though the foreign service exam is now computer-based, applicants must still have a broad knowledge of history, economics, culture and more to do well on it. The top candidates are invited to oral interviews and must then complete a series of background reviews.

It’s roughly a year-long process, one which Jeremy Roberts, a political science major at SSU, said he is seriously considering after listening to Thomas-Greenfield.

“It gives you the opportunity to travel, talk to different people from different countries and do humanitarian work,” said Roberts, a junior.

LEARN MORE

To learn more about foreign and civil service career opportunities, go to careers.state.gov. Download the DOSCareers mobile app at careers.state.gov/doscareers.